Charlie with all the
Hunt girls, Landini, Lavin, the American doctor, the American dentist,
and Gerald.

Also Manlio. The Fosses had brought him. He had returned from furlough
some time before. It was known now to everybody that he was the
_fidanzato_ of Brenda Foss. There was no talk of his leaving the
army; on the contrary, he was rumored to have prospects of early
advancement to the grade of captain; wherefore the general public took
it for granted that the bride's parents were providing the indispensable
marriage portion.

Aurora's eyes, at a moment when Manlio's attention was elsewhere, rested
on him with a brooding, shining look. The symptoms of a great happiness,
though modestly muffled, were plain in his face. The Beautiful One was
coming back in the spring, already near, to marry him.

Aurora's affectionate look was just tinged with regret. She had suffered
a disappointment in connection with Manlio. An obstinate and
uncompromising woman beyond the ocean, when invited to join in a
harmless conspiracy, had preferred to do actually, to the tune of eight
thousand dollars, what the grasping creature should have been satisfied
with merely appearing to do. The happiness that pierced through Manlio's
calm, like a strong light through pale marble, came to him from the
bride elect's aunt, and Aurora felt robbed.

But Mrs. Foss's hand found hers under the table and gave it a warm
squeeze, whereupon Aurora's heart swelled in a way it had of doing. When
such a dilation took place, something simultaneously happened to her
eyes: the surrounding world was revealed to them as "too lovely for
anything." Dimples declared her joy.

"Won't somebody have something more?" she asked, with the spoon in her
hand poised over a bowl still half full of chicken mayonnaise.

But every one was done with eating; all were in haste to go down on to
the floor and find amusement, perhaps adventure, amid the fluctuating,
fascinating crowd.

The box was fairly deserted when the door opened again, and the eyes of
those left in it, turning to see who entered, were met by two unknown
maskers.

One wore the costume of a _bravo_ of old times, picturesque,
disreputable, an operatic _Sparafucile_ in tattered mantle and
ragged plume. The other was in a black satin domino, and had the face of
a crow, a great black beak projecting from a black mask.

They stood a little way inside of the door as if waiting to be
addressed. There was silence for